News
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In a clear win for the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU), the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has ruled that Eureka Flags and other union banners can be flown from cranes on building sites.
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Fremantle City Council agreed on May 23 to support a rise in the federal government’s Newstart Allowance paid to unemployed jobseekers, becoming the first local government in Western Australia to adopt this position.
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"No more chances!" was the main message some 1000 people were chanting loudly at a protest on June 9 against the live export industry as part of a national day of action.
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Supporters of safe access zones at abortion clinics are celebrating after the NSW Parliament voted for such zones in the early hours of June 8.
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Charges brought against the so-called “Wollar Three” under New South Wales’ controversial anti-protest laws were dismissed by a Mudgee magistrate on June 5. However, the laws remain a threat to the right to protest.
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Analysis
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How many more leaked internal reports into criminal-sounding behaviour of some Australian army and special forces personnel do we need to demand the occupation troops in Afghanistan and Iraq be removed — immediately?
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At the recent Victorian Labor state conference, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) delegation and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA) and Labor’s Right faction to close the conference early. That meant that a range of good motions, including for a Shorten government to close the offshore detention centres, were not debated. Union leader John Setka didn't think this was a problem but others, including rank-and-file CFMMEU members, do.
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World
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Three things strike you when looking at videos and photos of the neo-fascist demonstration on June 9 in London calling for the release from prison of the Islamophobic criminal and English Defence League (EDL) co-founder Tommy Robinson, writes Andy Stowe.
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Washington has a long history of using deportations to strike fear among undocumented workers. In recent years, deportations have multiplied — previous president Barack Obama became known as “Deporter in Chief”.
But President Donald Trump has greatly stepped up the drive, mainly against Latinos without papers. He has unleashed Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out indiscriminate raids where Latinos congregate, deporting the undocumented. These include those without criminal records or who are guilty of only minor offensives, often separating families.
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There is plenty of evidence that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel, initiated by dozens of Palestinian civil society groups in 2005 in protest against Israel’s apartheid policies, is frightening the Israeli state, writes Lisa Gleeson.
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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the dramatic May-June 1968 upsurge in struggle by workers and students in France. The effects of this turbulent period, writes Stanley Blair, were felt around the world — and for years to come in France.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump met at a historic summit in Singapore on June 12 that concluded with a joint statement. Those who want peace and denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula have welcomed the success of the summit. Though the end of the war has not been declared, a decisive step towards complete denuclearisation and an end to mutual hostilities has been taken.
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The refusal by presidential candidate Henri Falcón to recognise the results bodes poorly for Nicolas Maduro’s new term as president. The consolidation of a moderate bloc within the opposition that Falcón represented — which recognises the government’s legitimacy — would have significantly cut into the strength of the more intransigent or radical parties on the right and provided Venezuelan politics with much needed stability.
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At the June 8 ceremonial handing over of portfolio briefcases from outgoing conservative People’s Party (PP) ministers to their incoming Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) replacements, the contrasts were dramatic.
A bunch of reactionary lifetime political operators and religious obscurantists were replaced by what new Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez boasted was the “progressive”, “feminist” and “Europeanist” alternative.
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President Daniel Ortega’s conciliatory moves in late April and May had raised hopes that tensions in Nicaragua would simmer down. Following several days of violent protests that began on April 18, Ortega called for the establishment of a roundtable dialogue to be mediated by Catholic bishops and he withdrew his social security reforms, the initial trigger for the protests.
However, the government’s conciliatory move has been met with an unprecedented escalation of violence.
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Culture
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Doug McEachern’s novel follows the progress and regress of the two friends living in the 1960s as “endless acrimonious debates over militancy” pepper their student group house in inner-city North Adelaide.
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Ian Angus, editor of Climate and Capitalism, takes a look at six new books of interest to ecosocialists — from pro-corporate “environmentalism” to the struggle of indigenous peoples in Latin America and the scramble for Africa’s natural resources.
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